Long Case Problem

Yesterday afternoon i went back to hospital to look for my second long case, which is due on this coming friday, oh no....

The patient that i met yesterday was a very nice lady, in fact, she talked too much. A good historian is good in helping us to complete the long case, but too much info that is not relevant, especially when they talk about their personal life (gosh, do i look like i care?), will only make the session more lengthy, more energy consuming, and more queries.

That's not the end, it was worse when the patient started to become emotional. I grabbed her hand and kinda consoled her when i first saw her eyes turned red and tearful. But the weird thing was this lasted for less than a minute and she could talked normally afterward. Then few minutes later, she became emotional and tearful again. Normal ... emo ... normal ... emo ... normal ... emo, i was ok at the beginning but slowly getting annoyed with that.

This experience makes me wonder, where is my empathy for patient? When the patient wept, i could just stared at her without feeling sorrow. And the bad thing was, i thought the patient was having some affective problem, instead of her emotional turmoil. I really want to become a good doctor....